This April, an unlikely press release made headlines in Major League Soccer- as well as Austrian soccer-related media: Los Angeles FC, reigning MLS champion and barely 9 years old, noted that they had “officially received approval to invest with the Austrian club FC Wacker Innsbruck,” the “living legend” that the song we just heard, Wacker Innsbruck’s anthem, speaks of. Benny Tran, one of LAFC’s vice presidents went to Innsbruck and described Wacker as having a “110 year old history and legendary fans” and promised to “return the Club to top-level, winning football.” He also promised Wacker’s fans and members, who own the majority of the club and will continue to, that their name, badge and colors would remain untouched.
The story sounds strange enough for an MLS club, period, but it becomes even stranger if we consider that, eight now, Wacker plays in Austria’s 4th tier. And for all its illustrious past, including championships and cup titles, Wacker’s last decades have been marked by more downs than ups, bankruptcies that technically don’t make the club 110 years old, and a total of three failed attempts to revive its fortunes with (supposedly) rich investors on board.
The “legendary fans” part is certainly true though. Innsbruck has the oldest and one of the most loyal active fan-cultures in Austria, a reputation for spectacular tifo, and would not exist at all anymore were it not for its most important stakeholders: it’s fan-members. So how does an MLS team, from a very different soccer culture, fit in here? And how to explain this beloved but chaotic 4th league club from the Alps to American soccer fans?
For one hour, Christian Hummer, life-long active Wacker fan, sports psychologist and one of the editor’s of Wacker’s only fan-run media, sat down to attempt some answers to these questions after sketching the club’s turbulent history over the last decades.
HELPFUL NOTES FOR THIOS EPISODE:
"Die Legende lebt!" ("The Legend lives," Wacker Innsbruck's club anthem. Youtube video with historical scenes)
FC Tirol championship song, 1988. Youtube.
Los Angeles FC press release, 4/14/2023
tivoli12.at, Wacker's fan-based online media that Chris works for
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Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind
Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/